Click here to read Reproductive Technologies 101, an overview of reproductive technologies

In 1979 China instituted the one-child policy, which limited every family to just one offspring in a controversial attempt to reduce the country’s burgeoning population. The strictly enforced law had the desired effects: in 2011 researchers estimated that the policy prevented 400 million births. In a new study in Science, researchers find that it has also caused China’s so-called little emperors to be more pessimistic, neurotic and selfish than their peers who have siblings. (Scientific American)

The poorest countries in the world are lagging behind higher-income developing countries in meeting the demand for modern contraception, U.S. researchers say. (UPI)

A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked enforcement of one of the country’s most stringent abortion laws, an Arkansas ban on the procedure at the 12th week of pregnancy, saying the law was likely to be declared unconstitutional. (New York Times)

Women aged up to 42 will now get a free cycle, rather than the previous maximum age limit of 40, after undergoing a test to see how many eggs they have left. This is known as their ovarian reserve. (The Telegraph)

Fertility specialists have developed a radical technique that can boost the chances of IVF couples having a healthy baby. Doctors in Nottingham who devised the procedure say it could raise live birthrates at their clinic to 78%, around three times the national average for IVF treatment in the UK. (The Guardian)

Public funding of assisted reproductive technology, including in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments, broadens the range of couples who seek treatment for infertility by attracting a more diverse population, according to new research from Canada. (Medical Xpress)

El Salvador’s Supreme Court heard opening arguments Wednesday in a landmark abortion case in which a woman suffering from kidney failure and lupus has not been allowed to terminate a pregnancy in which the fetus is given no chance of surviving. The Central American country’s laws prohibit all abortions, even when a woman’s health is at risk. At present, the woman and any doctor who terminated her 23-week pregnancy would face arrest and criminal charges. (ABC News)

Understanding the concept of morphogen gradients—the mechanism by which a signal from one part of a developing embryo can influence the location and other variables of surrounding cells—is important to developmental biology, gene regulation, evolution, and human health. (Phys.org)

A couple who had been trying for a baby for almost a decade have made medical history after the birth of quadruplet girls - the first time four children of the same sex have been born from a single embryo in Britain. (The Telegraph)

An increasing number of childless Asian couples are travelling to India for fertility treatment because of a shortage of south Asian egg donors in the UK. (BBC)

Nine women have registered with Japan’s first “ovum bank” to donate their eggs to help infertile women, paving the way for fertility treatment to begin within the year at the earliest, a private group said Monday. (The Japan Times)

A woman who was the first to have a successful womb transplant from a dead donor has had her pregnancy terminated after the embryo showed no heart beat, doctors in Turkey said on Tuesday. (Fox News)

A doctor who was responsible for cutting the spines of babies after botched abortions was convicted Monday of three counts of first-degree murder in a case that became a sharp rallying cry for anti-abortion activists. (New York Times)

Over the past two decades, the frozen preservation of embryos has become routine practice in IVF. What currently happens to embryos next is controlled by overlapping and complicated rules that confuse and disempower IVF users. (Medical Xpress)

Each year, worldwide, nearly 1 million babies die on the day they are born, according to a new report from Save the Children. Giving birth is also risky for mothers; nearly 800 women die every day during pregnancy or childbirth. While we’ve made significant strides in reducing child and maternal mortality rates since the 1970s, there are still many lives to save. (CNN)

Gays and lesbians who want babies are flocking from as far away as France and Israel to conceive their dream of becoming parents using donor eggs, donor sperm and surrogates — something not allowed in their home countries. (U.S.A. Today)

A federal judge in New York on Friday declined to temporarily halt a court order directing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to make emergency contraception available over the counter to girls of all ages. (Chicago Tribune)

This is the hormone that causes the uterus to contract during labor, and to contract after delivery, preventing postpartum hemorrhage. When Pitocin is used prior to delivery, it is used either to induce labor, or to augment (or strengthen) labor that has slowed down or stalled completely. (ABC News)

The latest round of ethical contretemps is an intriguing April article in The New England Journal of Medicine, “Made-to-Order Embryos for Sale—A Brave New World?” which discusses—comprehensively and dispassionately—many of the concerns raised about embryo donations, whether gifted or for sale. (Forbes)

Researchers from Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah have discovered that while the genes provided by the father arrive at fertilization pre-programmed to the state needed by the embryo, the genes provided by the mother are in a different state and must be reprogrammed to match. (E! Science News)

Among women who undergo in vitro fertilization (IVF) to become pregnant, there is no difference in delivery rates among those implanted with one prescreened embryo compared to those implanted with two unscreened embryos, new study findings reveal. (U.S. News and World Report)